IBM Launch Imaging AI Orchestrator

IBM Watson Health, the tech giant’s data, analytics, and technology branch for the health industry, has introduced a new AI orchestration offering to help imaging organizations experience the benefits of AI applications.

IBM Watson Health officially launched IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2021 Annual Meeting in Chicago. In addition, IBM announced IBM Imaging Workflow Orchestrator with Watson, a new solution that modernizes the radiologist’s reading experience whilst reducing the demands on IT and imaging system administrators.

“We recognize that when it comes to applying AI in imaging, it’s hard to go it alone”, said David Gruen, MD, MBA, FACR, Chief Medical Officer, Imaging, Watson Health. “Because each AI application is developed in a unique way with a specific purpose, it can be challenging for organizations to review and assess each one, and then to deploy them in a way that’s beneficial to radiologists and their patients. That’s why, with the rapid proliferation of approved algorithms, staffing shortages, and complexity of disease, the IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator could not come at a better time”.

IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator is a cloud-based AI service that provides imaging organizations with scalable access to regulatory-cleared AI applications from leading AI solution providers that have been vetted to meet strict data security and privacy standards. It’s designed to help radiologists control their access to AI insights within the context of reading workflow.

The Orchestrator indicates the status of AI processing in the worklist and returns consolidated results from AI applications directly into the Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS). IBM states that IT departments “benefit by outsourcing the management of multiple applications from diverse suppliers to IBM” whilst at launch, AI applications from several partners have been “validated for interoperability with AI Orchestrator and are available today from IBM”.

In addition to the availability through the Watson Health Imaging solutions, Life Image has also chosen to offer IBM Watson Health’s AI Orchestrator to their hospital and health system clients. Life Image, the world’s largest medical evidence network providing access to points of care and curated clinical and imaging data, has created a digital platform using interoperability standards to connect 13,000 facilities with more than 160,000 U.S. providers and 58,000 global clinics.

“Working together with IBM Watson Health, Life Image will promote universal, enterprise-wide access to imaging AI results and imaging data”, said Matthew A. Michela, President and CEO of Life Image. “We are excited about this collaboration and the opportunity to advance interoperability and the potential to improve outcomes for providers, patients, and the healthcare system at large”.

To further support radiology practices, IBM Imaging Workflow Orchestrator with Watson is a workflow solution that consolidates studies, patient data, and AI results into one interface to give physicians a head start in their reading activities. Built to support “advanced hybrid environments”, the cloud-native SaaS helps optimize the flow of studies, linking imaging data and tools that run on-premises and in the cloud, making them available to experts anywhere in the enterprise.

You can find more information about IBM Watson Health and IBM Imaging AI Orchestrator on IBM’s website.

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